by Maynard Sims
He smiled at her one last time and then entered the office, closing the door behind him, leaving Trudy feeling like she’d just been swimming with a shark. She picked up the phone, took a deep breath, and started making phone calls.
Carter opened his eyes as the radio alarm erupted into life with a blast of Porcupine Tree’s Deadwing. As he reached for the Off switch he thought for the hundredth time that he must get round to changing the radio station to something more mellow.
As silence filled the bedroom he kicked off the covers and swung his feet to the floor. It was only when he was sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing his hand over the stubble on his chin, that he realized he was alone. The pillow on the other side of the bed still bore the impression of Jane’s head, but that was the only clue that she had actually been here.
He grabbed a robe, pulled it on and padded through the rest of the flat. On the kitchen counter, propped up against a half empty packet of cigarettes, was a note written in green ink on the back of an envelope.
R. See you at the office. J. xxx.
Carter pulled a cigarette from the pack and lit it from the ring of the cooker. He switched on the coffee machine and headed to the bathroom. The trilling of the phone stopped him before he got there.
“Carter,” he said as he picked it up.
“Rob, it’s Trudy. I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news.”
“If it’s about Harry attacking Crozier, I already know. He phoned me from Waterloo Street so I went to see him.”
“How is he?”
“Confused about what exactly happened. Detective Inspector Tyler isn’t. She seems to think they have an airtight case against him.”
“Then you need to get in here and talk to Paul Lucas.”
“Who’s Paul Lucas?”
Carter smoked the cigarette down to a stub as he listened to her, finally grinding it out in the agate ashtray at the side of the phone, but not before he lit another from the stub’s glowing tip.
“So you see trouble ahead?” he said when she paused for breath.
“He says not, but I don’t believe him. He’s very tight with Alan Liskard, the Home Secretary’s predecessor, and we know what his stance is.”
Carter remembered Liskard well, and his interference in past cases. “So Lucas is cut from the same cloth?”
“It certainly looks that way. And we can’t rely on Francis Bates. Home Secretaries come and go, but the Civil Service goes on forever. Anyway, Lucas wants a meeting with all the Department’s senior operatives, probably to do some serious chest beating. I’m calling it for eleven thirty. You’ll be here?”
Carter said he would, disconnected and went to shower. It was bad enough having to deal with Crozier on a daily basis, but at least Simon Crozier was on the same side as him. The thought of having to report to another Whitehall pencil pusher with his own agenda made him uneasy. He had a feeling the next few days were going to be difficult.
The hair salon was bustling with activity as Jane pushed open the glass door. Most of the chairs were occupied and the hairdressers wielded combs, scissors and hairdryers deftly, satisfying their clients’ needs for a quick tidy up before the start of the working day. The salon made a point of opening early to cater for the working women whose busy schedules precluded appointments during the day but still had to look their best.
“Hello, Sharon,” she said to the young girl on the reception desk. “Can Abi fit me in? I know it’s a long shot.”
Sharon, a bright girl with asymmetrically cut, crimson hair and gothic makeup, smiled back at her and then consulted the appointment’s book. “You could be in luck.” She flicked over a page. “Yeah, I thought so. Abi’s free. Her first client cancelled. She’ll fit you in. Mind you she’s only just arrived and looks fried. She’s out the back making herself a coffee. I’ll go and have a word. Take a seat.” Sharon pointed to the three-seater settee parked in the window. Jane sat down, chose a hair magazine from a small selection of periodicals strewn over a glass-topped coffee table, and started flicking through it.
In the mirror on the wall opposite she could see her reflection. It confirmed what she had seen in the bathroom mirror at Carter’s flat. Thirty-five going on fifty. She needed a change of appearance, to go along with her resolve to completely revise her life.
Her hair looked lifeless, flecked now with grey it hung to her shoulders in a nondescript style. Parted in the centre and framing her face, it accentuated the fine web of lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth, making her appear a lot older than she was. And the clothes she wore habitually didn’t improve things. Dull and shapeless they covered a body that was trim and lithe, the breasts still firm and full. Not that David ever complained. Quite the reverse. He encouraged her to cover up, and was quite vehement that she should not cut her hair. Apart from the occasional trim to get rid of split ends she went along with his wishes rather than risk a row.
“Hello, Jane,” Abi said, busting into her thoughts.
Jane started and put down the magazine. “Sorry, I was miles away.”
“I know the feeling. I went to a gig with Paul last night. The aftershow party went on until two. I barely got here on time this morning.” Paul was her boyfriend and the bass player in a local pub-rock band, and Abi accompanied him from gig to gig rather than be the traditional rock-and-roll widow. “Come on,” she said, leading Jane to her regular seat at the far end of the salon. Jane had been coming here for three years now, long enough to be considered a regular, and she’d always got on well with Abi, a pretty girl, built like a gazelle, who wore her platinum blonde hair in a crew cut.
When Jane was settled Abi threw a cape around her and secured it at her neck, and then overlaid it with a snug and weighty rubber collar. “So what’s it to be? Your usual? Trim the ends.”
Now she was in the chair Jane found her resolve faltering and slowly she nodded her head.
Abi took a comb from her pocket and started running it through Jane’s hair.
Jane swallowed hard. “Actually I was thinking of a change. Perhaps a color? Highlights maybe.”
“And a change of style?”
Jane could visualize the look of anger on David’s face should she come home with a radically different hairstyle. He’d probably stop speaking to her. She’d lived through a fortnight of silence the last time she went against his wishes. It was a dreadful and almost debilitating time. Insulating the girls against the tension that crackled in the house was the worst aspect. That had been tough and not entirely successful. A couple of times she’d heard them whispering in the bedroom and realized they were much more perceptive than she’d thought.
Never again, she thought. The decision was made.
Abi was staring at her in the mirror, waiting for her answer.
A slow smile spread across Jane’s face. “Yes,” she said. “Something radical.”
“More than just a trim then.”
“Yeah. Crop it.”
Jane waited for Abi to pick up her chin from the floor.
“Are you sure?” Abi said, her eyes wide.
Jane held the young hairdresser’s startled gaze. “Yes,” she said. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
Chapter Twelve
Leon Sultan pulled up outside the large Edwardian house on the south side of Richmond Park. He stepped from the Lexus and shut the door behind him, wiping a dried water smear from the side window with a silk handkerchief.
The front door of the house opened before he started climbing the three stone steps beneath the portico. He was expected.
The middle-aged man who held the door open for him was as immaculately dressed as he was himself, but the suit wasn’t Savile Row or even a designer name. Good quality high street was Sultan’s best guess. Still the man looked sharp, as fitting his position as butler to one of the richest men in the country.
“Good day, Mr. Sultan,” the butler said crisply. “Sir Richard is expecting you. You’ll find him in the library.” He stood to one side to allow entry to the house and closed the door as Sultan walked through and took the black-and-white tiled corridor to the massive room at the back of the house that Sir Richard Bennington used as a library.
He entered the room to find Bennington at the window, the usual glass of whisky in hand, staring out through the window at a herd of deer congregating close to a stand of elms. Bennington was a tall man in his early forties. His ramrod-straight stance was the result of a military career that stalled at captain, prompting his early retirement three years ago. Not that he needed to work. His father had died leaving him the sole beneficiary of his will. The house in Richmond, the estate in Dorset and more millions in his bank than he cared to count. No, the army life wasn’t for him anymore. The question though, what was?
“Bloody magnificent, aren’t they?” Bennington said without looking round. “Look at that stag. Sixteen prongs. Beautiful bugger. I’d break out the twelve bore if they allowed hunting in the park.”
“You’d upset the tourists,” Sultan said.
“Not a hunter yourself then?”
“Golf’s my game,” Sultan said.
“A good walk spoilt. Who said that? Coward? Chesterton?” He shook his head.
Sultan didn’t know and didn’t care. Bennington was an oaf, albeit a very rich one and, as such, had his uses.
“How is our mutual friend?” Bennington asked, moving away from the window to the desk. He sat down in the green leather captain’s chair and used the desk as a barrier between himself and Sultan. Richard Bennington would never admit it or show it but the neatly groomed, politely spoken man terrified the life out of him. Every day that went by was colored by the regret he felt at ever getting involved with Leon Sultan and his employer.
Sultan pulled up a chair on the opposite side of the desk and sat, raising the legs of his impeccably cut Armani trousers to stop them bagging at the knees. “He’s fine. He sends his regards,” Sultan said. “Perhaps we could get down to business. I’m on something of a tight schedule.”
Bennington flushed slightly. “Of course,” he said as he pulled open the desk drawer and took out his checkbook. He placed the checkbook on the desk and flipped it open at a blank check. “I know we’ve spoken about this in the past,” he said. “But these payments…what guarantees can you give me that I’ll get what I’m paying for?”
Sultan smiled blandly at him. “You have my word. Is that not good enough?”
Bennington wrote the check and signed it quickly as his cheeks reddened more. “Of course. I wasn’t implying that…”
Sultan held up hand to stop him. He glanced down at the checkbook and then back at Bennington. “You entered into a contract with us of your own free will. We didn’t threaten or coerce you. You had all the benefits laid out before you. You studied them and agreed to our terms. Are you telling me now that you’re having second thoughts?”
Bennington shook his head vigorously. “No, no. No second thoughts. It’s just that I was talking to someone at the club and he said I should…”
Sultan sat forward in his seat abruptly. “Are you trying to tell me you’ve spoken about the contract with someone else?”
The redness drained from Bennington’s face and suddenly he was deathly white. “Not directly… I mean…not at all. I was talking hypothetically, and he said…”
Sultan was on his feet, leaning forward, knuckles clenched, resting on the desk. “Listen, you fuckwit, you were told not to speak about the contract with anyone,” he said dangerously.
“But I didn’t,” Bennington said. “Like I said, it was a hypothetical discussion. No harm done.”
Sultan stood upright, a silenced automatic clenched in his hand, directed at Bennington. “And this is a hypothetical gun pointing at you.” His finger squeezed the trigger. “And a hypothetical bullet blowing out your fucking stupid, hypothetical brain.”
Sir Richard Bennington slumped forward onto the desk, knocking the checkbook and a brass pen-stand to the floor. As the bullet entered his brain he convulsed, his right leg jerking, connecting with a small, white bell push, put there in case of emergencies. Seconds later the door opened and the butler entered the room. Briefly, confusion registered in the man’s eyes but another bullet from Sultan’s gun answered the man’s questions for him. As the butler fell to the floor, blood pooling beneath his head, Sultan pulled out his cell phone.
“We have a problem,” he said as his call was answered.
“I don’t like problems, Leon. I pay you to solve, or at least avoid, problems. How serious is it?” the rasping voice said.
“Bennington. I had to terminate his contract.”
“Why? He was a useful contributor.”
“He was also an idiot. He’d been talking to someone at his club about the contract.”
“Have you any idea who?”
“I’m afraid I shot him before finding that out.”
“And you thought Bennington was an idiot?”
“He assured me he only spoke of us hypothetically.”
There was silence for a moment on the other end of the line as the information was digested.
“And you believed him?”
“Yes.”
Silence again.
Finally the crackling voice said, “It’s unfortunate…but not the end of the world. Was there anyone else involved?”
“Just Bennington and his butler.”
“Both dead?”
“Yes.”
“The Richmond Park house?”
“Yes.”
“There will be someone there in fifteen minutes to clean the place up.”
“Okay.”
“Leon, I put all my trust in you. Today you have made a serious error of judgment. That bothers me.”
“I know and I apologize.”
“Apology accepted, Leon. But don’t let me down again. You won’t get another chance.”
The line went dead.
Sultan realized he was sweating. A thin dribble of perspiration snaked down his back, making him shiver. He bent, scooped up the checkbook from where it had fallen on the floor, slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket and left the house without a backward glance.
In the conference room at Department 18’s headquarters in Whitehall there was a low murmur of conversation amongst the twenty or so people gathered there. McKinley had been the first to arrive and seated himself at the end of the table, as far away from where Paul Lucas would be sitting as he could get. When Carter arrived he took the seat that McKinley had saved for him. The chair on the other side of McKinley was occupied by his briefcase. He was saving that one for Jane. Although there was nothing official about it McKinley thought of Carter and Jane, along with Bailey, as a team. They had worked some of the most dangerous cases together and had an almost unassailable bond between them.
Trudy came into the conference room and started handing out sheets of A4 paper, closely typed on one side. Before McKinley could start reading it the door opened again and Lucas entered the room, taking the seat at the head of the large oval table and flipping open the black, ring binder Trudy had placed there.
The murmured conversation died away and an expectant hush descended on the room, all eyes on Lucas, everyone in the room waiting for his opening statement.
After a minute or so he looked up from the papers in the ring binder and said, “Welcome. Thanks for coming. For those of you that don’t know me, I’m Paul Lucas. The Home Secretary has sent me here to oversee the running of the Department while Simon Crozier is indisposed.”
Another pulse of conversation rippled around the room at the announcement.
“Where’s Jane?” McKinley whispered to Carter.
“Se
arch me. She should have been here by now.”
Frank Edwards, the head of the team that specialized in poltergeist activity, got to his feet. “It was my understanding that Simon’s deputy was Harry Bailey. What’s changed?”
“Harry is under arrest for trying to kill Crozier,” Carter said.
All eyes in the room turned to him and people started firing questions. At that moment the door opened and Jane walked into the room. Carter stared at her, the questions from the others buzzing in his ears were like white noise. Jane looked stunning and he could not take his eyes off her.
Her hair had been cut to a pixie crop and laced with subtle blond highlights. She was wearing a neatly tailored, dark blue business suit he had never seen before and, for the first time at work, she was wearing makeup, subtle shades of orange and gold that enhanced her eyes and made them sparkle. “Sorry I’m late,” she said to Lucas.
McKinley raised his arm. “Jane, there’s a seat for you here.” He removed the briefcase from the chair next to him and placed it at his feet.
Nodding hello to various people in the room, Jane walked to the seat McKinley had saved for her and sat down. “Thanks, John,” she said.
Carter was still watching her, mesmerized by the transformation. He made as if to say something to her, but she mouthed, “Later,” to him, smiled and turned her attention to Lucas at the head of the table.
As the room fell silent, Lucas pulled a sheet of paper from the ring binder. He scanned it quickly. “You’ve all been given one of these. It’s a summary of what happened yesterday, designed to bring you all up to speed. You’ll have questions, and I’ll do my best to answer them.” He looked down the table to Carter, McKinley and Jane. “I’m counting on you to fill in any blanks. Now I’ll give you few moments to read the sheet and digest its contents. We’ll discuss it when I return.”
He stood abruptly and walked from the room. Once outside he called back to Trudy. “If you could join me.”
